Coming Home
by Destial
Summary: Dean's not sure if he would have let himself love Lisa – if he would have realized he could love someone, that someone could love him – if not for Ben.


**Title:** Coming Home  
**Author:** **destial**  
**Pairing:** Dean/Lisa  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Warnings:** Dean is … maybe happy.  
**Spoilers:** 6x02  
**Word Count:** 1021  
**Notes/Prompt(s):** Originally written for a schmoop prompt… then for a hurt/comfort prompt… now it's just written.  
**Summary:**_ Dean's not sure if he would have let himself love Lisa – if he would have realized he could love someone, that someone could love him – if not for Ben. _

* * *

**Coming Home**

It isn't terribly late when Dean makes it back. His watch tells him it's 2:15 – well, that can't be right. His cell phone tells him it's 7:32 and Dean tells himself he needs a new watch, as he tugs his off and tosses it into the passenger foot well.

He half expects for Lisa to poke her head out through the garage door as he pulls the Impala into its space there, but isn't surprised when he finds himself closing the garage door and still alone.

"Lisa?" Dean calls as he steps into the kitchen. "Ben?"

No one answers but Dean doesn't let himself panic. He does a quick sweep of the house and nothing's too out of place – there's not a single sign of a struggle – but there's also no Ben or Lisa.

"Probably just ran to the store," he mutters as he sinks into the couch. His couch. God, he hadn't realized how nice it could be to sit on a couch he knows and recognizes. Hell, one he picked out himself. It's the perfect couch for afternoon naps (why he picked it out in the first place) and he's exhausted, never went to sleep the night before and had been driving since they checked out of the motel. Why get a room if there was no plan of using it, Dean has no idea, but Sam's just like that now.

He can't sleep, though, not until he sees Ben, holds Lisa again. No matter how damn comfortable the couch is.

He yawns, long and big, his eyes sliding shut.

When he opens them again, Lisa's crouched beside him.

"Hey Dean," she says, voice soft. "When'd you get in?"

"Just a few-" He stops, frowning at how dark the room is. The sun had still been up, providing more than enough light, when he got there. He looks down at his watch, realizes it's not there, then up at the cable box, which is happily blinking 10:54 in neon red light. "Oh. Um, few hours ago. Where were you guys? Where's Ben?"

"Ben's upstairs," Lisa says. "I told him he could say hi in the morning. You will be here in the morning, right?" Dean nods and Lisa's mouth quirks up on one side. "We were at the movies. You should have called, we would have waited for you."

"Nah," he replies, then groans as he stretches. _Everything_ hurts. He doesn't remember digging up corpses making him hurt this much. "Would have just fallen asleep anyway."

Lisa gives him a searching look and asks, simply, "You sore?"

He throws her a crooked smile and admits, "Not even in a fun way."

"I should hope not," she says, but there's no heat behind her words. She trusts him. "Come on."

It's strangely intimate, being led like this to his own bed, holding the hand of the woman that sleeps there regularly, that's going to be climbing into it with him and has done it before, will do it again. Television and bitter drunks had taught him that passion and intimacy fizzles out when you stick with the same person, but this little action, it could never compare with a one night stand. It's comfort and refuge, trust and stability. It's the knowledge of who he is and who she is and who they are together.

It's moments like this when Dean is sure he loves Lisa, because he's never been this close to another person in his life except Sam, and even his brother had never burrowed inside, let Dean in in return. Sam had almost always felt like home and comfort, but he'd never felt stable and he'd never felt safe.

And now… now he didn't feel like home at all.

These are the thoughts that plague Dean as he's led into their bedroom. Lisa releases his hand to go about her nightly ritual and Dean drops onto the foot of the bed to watch her.

As she pulls on her pajama pants, she glances at him through her bangs.

"You getting undressed?" Lisa asks, concern coloring her words.

"Yea," he says and his voice is hoarse. Then, "I missed you guys."

She smiles then but he can't tell if it's a sad smile or not.

"We missed you, too, Dean."

Lisa's hand is warm and soft against his cheek and Dean's very much awake all of a sudden. His chest aches with how much he cares for this woman, how much he adores her son, her life, her.

He had denied himself this his entire life, settling for surrogacy with Sammy and dad, but for one day when he was twenty-eight and didn't have a whole year left to live, for a single day, he'd thought Ben was his. And why shouldn't he have? He and Lisa had been nineteen and stupid with lust and genuine affection. It was the story of almost every young, unplanned pregnancy.

Dean's not sure if he would have let himself love Lisa – if he would have realized he could love someone, that someone could love him – if not for Ben. It wasn't until he thought he had a son that he realized how badly he wanted to be a dad. But it wasn't just Ben that he'd dreamed about. He wanted that other thing, too, that thing dad had mourned for years past mourning Mary the mother of his children. It was a soothing hand, a cooing voice, a delicate body that hid a strong soul. He wanted a wife as much as he wanted a child and now he had both, more or less.

"What would I do without you?" Dean asks and he hadn't realized he'd grabbed her, pulled her forward by her hips to stand between his knees. Dean takes a shaky breath and buries his face in warm, soft cotton stretched across a warm, soft belly.

Lisa doesn't answer for a while, instead choosing to cradle Dean's head, gently kneading at his neck.

"I'm not going anywhere, Dean," she finally says and Dean wants to laugh and cry all at once because, God help him, he believes her.


End file.
